BP set to apply permanent well cap

by Kevin Spear - Aug. 1, 2010 12:00 AMOrlando Sentinel

ABOARD THE DISCOVERER ENTERPRISE - For most of three months, this drilling ship was a front-row seat to roaring infernos of petroleum, pillars of smoke that eclipsed the sky and multicolored slicks of crude that drifted across the Gulf of Mexico.

On Saturday, that apocalyptic spectacle was gone, replaced by drama nearly a mile under the Discoverer Enterprise drilling ship. Oil company BP is on the brink of killing its deadly and destructive well blowout with heavy mud and then entombing it under cement.

"It's fair to say we won't see any more oil spilling," said Jason Braquet, manager of the Transocean rig, speaking to a small group of visiting journalists.

It has been 104 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig working for BP was engulfed in an explosion and fire, fueled by a gush of oil and gas the drilling industry was little prepared for. The rig sank April 22 in water 4,992 feet deep, rupturing the plumbing of a well that extends 13,293 from the seafloor into a potent reservoir of crude.

Most of BP's response tactics - including a giant container, "top kill," "junk shot" and an insertion tube - did little to lessen the gush of oil.

Now the company thinks it has engineered an endgame that within weeks will permanently defeat a blown-out well that could rank ultimately as having caused the Gulf's and the nation's most catastrophic spill.

Elation was brief when the well was capped July 15 with a temporary device. Since then, BP and federal authorities have worried the pressure within the well could cause an underground eruption, allowing petroleum to escape through seafloor fissures.

Although contained, the well remains alive and dangerous.

A final assault on the damaged well could begin as early as Monday with the "static kill," a delicate procedure of brute force.

A trio of vessels will pump drilling mud weighing 13.2 pounds per gallon into the well at a pressure slightly higher than the pressure of oil and gas. As more mud is pumped into the top of the well, it could gain enough weight to counteract the upward pressure of the oil and gas. BP has calculated that enough mud, as much as 85,000 gallons, will bully the petroleum back into its reservoir.

If that happens, the well will be dead.

But a dead well still needs a burial under many hundreds of barrels of cement pumped beneath the Gulf floor.